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Showing posts from May, 2023

Rang De : A #CauseAChatter BlogPost

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This year 2023 is my first time participating in Blogchatter’s campaign #CauseAChatter, where bloggers talk about a cause close to their hearts on social media, read and research and blog about their findings. This year they have changed a few rules and modified the entire journey for CauseAChatter, introducing Rang De and a chance for us bloggers to invest in change. So I educated myself, read articles online of the buzz words and financial lingo, and have summed it up here: 1. Social Investment: Social Investment is the use of finance to achieve a financial return on top of a social return. The money provided by the investors is paid back after being spent on making a better society. It helps fund a capital for achieving a social mission. The terms of repayment are flexible with low interest rates, as it targets those communities with low annual income. It is a method to bridge in the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the prosperous and the underserved. Social Investmen...
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Nanda Devi : Book Review

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Title: Nanda Devi Author: Sandeep Madadi Genre: Travelogue Rating: 4/5 Buy at:  Amazon (Nanda Devi)   Book Blurb: There are mountains, particularly in some ranges of the Indian Himalaya, that have grown taller in our minds. Many of them are made taller, tougher, and almost legendary by an intricate veil of mythology and mystery around them. Add a rich legacy of heroic explorations, epic ascents, tragic accidents and a generous dash of romanticism to that and you have Nanda Devi. For reasons known yet unexplained -plutonium or pollution, political or practical – since 1983, Nanda Devi and its sanctum sanctorum remain out of bounds. This is a narrative of mountain travel and exploration set in the backdrop of the Nanda Devi Sanctuary that offers a vigorous description of men as much as the mountains. The intertwined narrative of this book attempts to take you on a voyage into the forbidden Inner sanctuary, back to those good old days, reflecting on the prior explo...
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Queeristan by Parmesh Sahani

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  Queeristan (Amazon Link) Thanks to Audible Free Trial I listened to this amazing non-fiction on LGBTQ inclusion in Indian workplaces. Author Parmesh Sahani identifies as gay Indian, working closely with Godrej higher management and employees for years to create an inclusive workplace, both legally and in spirit. This book is a result of those years of experience, research, collaboration with individuals from difference spectrum of the society and organizations who has successfully transitioned into a queer friendly one.   Indian history is inclusive. From the Khajuraho temple architectures, to Konark to the Rig Veda, there is existing proofs even 2000 years ago of Indian inclusiveness of queer. It’s the draconian British law that criminalised it, which was scraped in 2009, came into effect once again following a sad judgement in 2013 and eventually was scraped off for good in 2018. I am in awe of the lawyers who fought this legal battle- colleagues and partners – Arundh...
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Empress Ki : A story of an epic scale

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Empress Ki Poster (behance.net) Empress Ki is the most elaborate, gripping, and thrilling series I have watched this year. And at 51 episodes , it is the longest Korean drama series I have ever watched. Even though the number seems daunting and too much, it’s worth it all. If you like period dramas, you won’t want to give this one a miss. It was in 2016 that I first read about Empress Ki, the historical drama that had garnered much praise and accolades from the audience and critics alike. Most Korean dramas are just 16 or 20 episodes long. So 51 seemed never-ending to me then. It wasn’t until 2017 that I decided to at least try the first episode. And I was hooked. But owing to the various circumstances I didn’t continue watching it. It was just last month that I remembered this epic story and watched it to completion within just a few days. Believe it or not, midway through it, I was almost literally pulling my hair out, in anticipation of what would happen next. I wou...
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Autumn In My Heart

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‘Autumn in my heart’ is a tragic love story. It has tears in almost every episode. It is one of the four ‘Endless love’ season themed dramas- Spring Waltz, Autumn Tale, Winter Sonata, and Summer Scent. Two babies are born on the same day- Eun suh and Shin ae. By mistake, they are exchanged by their families. While Eun suh’s childhood is a happy one spent with the parents and the brother Joon suh, Shin ae’s is a tiring one spent working in the restaurant and dealing with a thug of a brother. After 14 years due to an accident to Eun suh, the parents come to know that their blood types don’t match and that Eun suh is not their daughter.  After huge emotional turmoil and numerous heart breaks, the children are switched back again, disregarding what will become of Eun suh and Joon suh. Both are never used to living without each other, and miss the childhood days immensely. Joon suh’s family leaves for the US for 8 years. The separation is heart wrenching. After 8 years, Joon suh...
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“The Fall” [2006] – A Tribute to the Power of Stories

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   I welcome Arun Kumar of Passion For Movies whose reviews have an identity of their own and shows his undulated love for movies. I thank him for finding time and agreeing to do a guest post in Magic Moments. It's a huge privilege. So here's a guest post by him on one of his favorite movies.   “The Fall” [2006] – A Tribute to the Power of Stories   Sometimes, you make an emotional bond with a film and dissect or interpret its vision in different ways, while a fellow movie-lover would pan it by using the most loathful words. Tarsem Singh’s visually exuberant movie, “The Fall” (2006) falls into that category. Many critics deemed it as a self-indulgent, vanity project; or as a preposterously intolerable, childish story. Does Tarsem have abundant directorial ego that drove the likes of Jodorowsky, Lynch or Gilliam, who all persistently came up with outlandishly inventive visuals? I would say yes. As a movie-lover, this so-called ‘directorial eg...
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The Baztan Trilogy

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The first movie 'The Invisible Guardian' begins with the killings of several teenage girls and elaborate staging of their bodies by the river in the damp valley of Elizondo. Amaia Salazar, our protagonist, returns there, her hometown, as the Chief Investigator for the case. She heads the homicide department. The serial killings seem aimed at young girls who don't uphold the traditional norms and have begun exploring their sexuality. Through the case, Amaia grapples with her own demons, her relationship issues and traumatic memories of abuse from her past. We get to know that her mother had abused her, being seemingly senile herself, and was then admitted to a facility. The setting of the damp valley where it rains all hours of the day, the cloudy scenery, the fog covered thick forest maintain a sinister vibe throughout the movie. It is an apt backdrop for a crime thriller, with supernatural undertones. The mythical beast  basajaun , the big hairy beast of the forest, seems ...
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Katla - A mystery series based on Icelandic folklores

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Last weekend I chanced upon Netflix's first Icelandic series released this month. The trailer was what hooked me in. Set in an intriguing yet beautiful landscape, a remote Icelandic village Vik, with the ocean on one side, a river nearby and an active volcano named 'Katla' on the other- the area a juxtaposition of black volcanic soil and white snow, this 8-episode series weaves together several mysterious happenings to form its creepy enigmatic narrative.  The volcano has been erupting for over an year making the place almost uninhabitable. Most of the residents have evacuated or permanently shifted to other places, except a team of volcanologists and scientists, rescue workers, essential service providers, and very few common folk who don't want to leave the place. The mysterious happenings start when a woman is discovered in the restricted area near the volcano- naked -the black mud covering her being entirely. She resembles a lady who used to live in the area 20 year...
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Reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

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Reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami is a very revealing experience. I encounter my own thoughts, views, and somewhere somehow suppressed opinions, wishes and teenage dreams. The growth and the development in Naoko and Watanabe’s relation is very memorable, has a nostalgic essence to it. Naoko is Kizuki’s girlfriend, who is Watanabe’s best friend. They are just acquaintances, at first, meeting up in double dates, but with Kizuki’s suicide, they are devastated and broken with only each other to care for as an integral part of their adolescence vanished along with Kizuki. They grow close with time, as years pass by, taking long walks in the meadow, through the streets of Tokyo, riding together in the metro, and discussing everything under the sun except Kizuki’s sudden death. On Naoko’s birthday when Watanabe mentions him, she snaps, crying violently. She leaves the town without notice. The story turns sad and melancholic at this point as Watanabe misses Naoko terribly, w...
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A Gathering Of Friends By Ruskin Bond

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a gathering of friends is a collection of 21 short stories. The twenty-one stories in the book are the greatest pieces of fiction written by Ruskin Bond. Chosen by the author himself, from a body of work built over fifty years (starting with his award winning first novel, ‘The Room on the Roof’, and ending with ‘Tales of Fosterganj’), this collection includes well-known masterpieces like ‘The Night Train at Deoli’, ‘The Woman on Platform 8’, ‘Rusty Plays Holi’, ‘Angry River’, ‘The Blue Umbrella’, ‘The Eyes Have It’, ‘Most Beautiful’, ‘Panther’s Moon’, as well as newer stories like ‘An Evening at the Savoy with H.H’ and ‘Dinner with Foster’. Taken together, the stories in A Gathering of Friends show why Ruskin Bond has long been regarded as one of the pillars of Indian Literature. Timeless tales Ruskin Bond's stories have the essence of the hills, the trains through the deodars, uninhibited exploration of childhood and other vagaries of life. They have suc...
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